THE NEW YOR.KER. parrot. The only element that contra- dicted the raw truth of the story was that in the painting he was wearing not the collarless shirt and the sus- penders with green stripes but, rather, a bowler hat and black frock coat cop- ied from a rotogravure made during the years of the cholera epidemic. So that everyone would have the chance to see it, the painting was exhibited for a few months after the tragedy in the vast gallery of the Golden Wire, a shop that sold imported merchandise, and the entire city filed by. Then it was displayed on the walls of all the public and private institutions that felt obliged to pay tribute to the memory of their illustrious patron, and at last it was hung, after a second funeral, in the School of Fine Arts, where it was pulled down many years later by art students, who burned it in the Plaza of the University as a symbol of an aes- thetic and a time they despised. From her first moment as a widow, one could see that Fermina Daza was not as helpless as her husband had feared. She was adamant in her deter- mination not to allow the body to be used for any cause, and she remained so even after the honorific telegram from the President of the Republic ordered it to lie in state for public viewing in the Assembly Chamber of . the Provincial Government. With the same serenity she opposed a vigil in the cathedral, which the Archbishop him- self had requested, and she agreed to its lying there only during the funer- al Mass. Even after the mediation of her son, who was dumbfounded by so many different requests, Fermina Daza was firm in her rustic notion .,.. that the 'dead belong only to the fam- il y, and that the vigil should be kept at home, with mountain coffee and frit- ters and people free to weep for him in any way they chose. There would be no traditional nine-night wake. The doors were closed after the funeral, and did not open again except for visits from intimate friends. The house was under the rule of death. Every object of value had been locked away with care for safekeeping, and on the bare walls there were only the outlines of the pictures that had been taken down. Chairs from the house, and those lent by the neighbors, were lined up against the walls from the drawing room to the bedrooms, and the empty spaces seemed immense and the voices had a ghostly reso- nance, because the large pieces of fur- niture had been moved to one side, except for the concert piano, which . 49 ",' -, . "" I, , " ....... 1\"' \"', \."", marimekko@ 7 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019 212-581-9616 . PHILIP LESLIE HALE .if'" {i- ':> . .""", :;t !l -'" ... ..- 1. "\ .t' ./.,' >; "'."i "" --- -..:;.... .il> ....... """"... The Cottage, 20" x 28' oil on canvas He isn't as expensive as other Boston School Painters... Yet. Beginning April 5 through June, 1988, Vose Galleries presents a major exhibition of 40 oils pastels and drawings by Philip Leslie Hale. Fully illustrated catalog available with original essay by Carol Lowrey, PhD candidate in Art History at the City University of New York. $10.00. t n t% n GALLERIE e ; in .fiv; Y ;!sSHED 1841 4 238NEWBURYST.,BOSTON,MA.02116-(617)536..6176 .